


Tender Remains

by CredenceTheDemon



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Hope, Hugs, Kaede’s development lab has been finished, Kiibo hasn’t been equipped with flashlight eyes yet, Nightmares, Piano, Singing, Song Lyrics, Songfic, au where everyone is given sleepwear instead of being forced to sleep in their clothes, comforting hugs, implied Kiiede
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 17:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16454366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CredenceTheDemon/pseuds/CredenceTheDemon
Summary: Feeling troubled by thoughts of the killing game he had been forced into Kiibo takes a walk outside, he soon discovers he wasn’t the only one who decided to do that.





	Tender Remains

**Author's Note:**

> The song used is called Tender Remains by Myuu and Sharm, I don’t own this song, I just really wanted to write something with these two that involved Kaede playing something by Myuu, his music is phenomenal!

Night had already fallen a long time ago, all the students were asleep in their individual rooms.

Well almost all of them, Kiibo, the SHSL robot had been feeling troubled ever since Monokuma announced that the only way to escape this place was through killing someone and getting away with it, ever since then several questions have been running through his mind, ‘why is Monokuma doing this?’, ‘is anyone actually planning to go through with a murder?’, ‘is anyone planning to kill him?’.

He didn’t want to doubt his fellow classmates, but he couldn’t deny the looks of distrust everyone had given each other once they had been informed about the killing game, he couldn’t help but feel sad at the memory, even now it was clear that everyone was still troubled by this sudden turn of events.

Even the times they had tried to escape through the sewer were still fresh in his mind, over and over again, all to no avail, a small spark of hope had appeared in front of them only to be snuffed out immediately.  
One of the few who didn’t give up was Kaede, Kaede... she had managed to give others the will to go on, even if almost everyone had stopped listening to her the second time, Kiibo couldn’t deny the effect she had on everyone before then.  
Was there even an exit in the first place? Probably not, he’ll most likely never know for sure.

The white haired robot sighed, he stared into space his eyes seemingly fixed on the ceiling, the robot grew restless as he allowed his eyes to wonder around his room, despite what some might think, he didn’t have a function that allowed his eyes to glow whenever he wanted, at least he thought he didn’t, he could already imagine Ouma adding “Flashlight” and “Lamp” to the list of nicknames he had for him if he did have such a function, he was tired of sitting in the darkness at this point, there was just too much on his mind, but what else could he do? His charging cable was so small he couldn’t really walk around the room.

Finally he had enough, he unplugged the cable and ventured outside.

-

Walking around did make him feel better, but the seemingly endless amount of questions still remained in his mind, he wondered around everywhere (except the gymnasium and the dining hall), Kiibo half expected Monokuma or one of the Monokubs to have told him off for wondering around after hours, but he didn’t see them once, either they didn’t know or they didn’t care, one of the two.

Kiibo didn’t know how long he had been walking, the only sound he heard was his footsteps which would be muffled by the more grassy patches of the overgrown building, the next thing he knew he was passing one of the research labs.

 

He froze at the sound of a piano being played, Kiibo had a feeling he knew who was in that room, and the voice that sung along to the melody confirmed his suspicion.

“There was once a girl who dreamed, of angels and demons and all in between,

Lived in a castle of stone like her family dwelt in the courtyard and danced with her memories of”

 

Sure enough the voice belonged to Kaede Akamatsu, the SHSL pianist doing what she did best, why was she up so late though? Maybe she felt too troubled to rest as well? He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.  
He peeked into the room to see the blonde pianist, she hadn’t even bothered to change out of her sleepwear, which were matching pyjamas with various music notes on music staves, other than the light pink colour they greatly resembled the skirt she would often wear.

Rather than questioning her decision to play the piano so late at night like most would, Kiibo just continued to watch and listen, he hadn’t heard her sing until now and he found the sound of both her voice and the melody of the piano pleasant.

“Love and enchantment,  
Golden the sun when,  
High in sky then,  
She closed her eyes in the moment”

The turquoise eyed robot watched in amazement as she played, she had tried to teach him a few times, but being a robot with little to no sense of rhythm he could certainly say those sessions were a disaster, even though she’s told him he’s been getting better with each lesson (which he doubted) he knew he was a long way from being good as her.

 

“There was once a girl who dreamed, of angels and demons and all in between,

Kept her mouth shut and her dreams like her family,

Tampered her memories and bowed to her betters like,

Lowly, spare me 

Memories, escape me

Lowly, use me

Memories, escape me”

 

She paused, had she spotted him?! Kiibo quickly hid behind the wall hoping she hadn’t noticed him, sure he was just watching her play piano, but he was still watching her without permission, would she get mad?  
His thoughts were interrupted when she started playing again, he lost himself in the melody again as he kept listening.

There was a long instrumental before she began to sing again.

“There was once a girl who dreamed, of angels and demons and all in between,

Tired her body and weary her mind, gentle her memory of family behind”

Kaede looked at peace as she continued to play the instrument she loved so much.

She closed her eyes and played the final part of the song, moonlight shone on both her and the instrument, Kaede’s hands hit the final notes, they lingered there for a bit before sliding off the keys.

Kaede looked up before Kiibo could leave, her warm purple eyes met his turquoise ones, ‘Kiibo?’ he jumped back at bit and started to panic as she walked towards him, the turquoise eyed robot remained frozen as she looked at him curiously, ‘what are you doing out here?’ she asked, ‘I felt restless just sitting in my room, I just couldn’t stop thinking about the situation we are in, so I took a walk’ he answered, the pianist nodded in understanding, ‘what about you Akamatsu? Why are you up so late?’ he enquired, the blonde crossed her arms in a self hugging sort of way and sighed, ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about it either’, Kiibo tilted his head, ‘the killing game, I’ve started having nightmares about it, every time I’ve tried to go back to sleep they just seemed to get worse...’ Kaede said, it was obvious she was troubled and anxious, Kiibo knew that much, however he had never experienced dreams, let alone nightmares, he was always conscious while charging after all, the android sighed in frustration, how was he supposed to comfort his friend if he had no idea what they’re going through!

‘Kiibo?’ he was brought out of thoughts when Kaede said his name, ‘what is it?’ he asked quickly, ‘you looked a bit frustrated about something’ she responded, the robot stared at Kaede’s warm purple eyes, which were filled with concern.

‘It’s just, I’m always conscious while charging, meaning I’ve never experienced nightmares, so I don’t really have a full understanding of what you’re going through’ he said sounding almost ashamed of himself, ‘I’m sorry, I want to comfort you but-‘ Kaede put a hand on his shoulder before he could continue, Kiibo paused for a bit before asking ‘how do you comfort someone after they’ve had a nightmare?’ he looked at her with curiosity in his eyes, the pianist thought for a moment, ‘well usually they’re given hugs, sometimes they’re asked if they want to talk about what happened in the nightmare they just had, if they want to of course’, Kaede watched the robot ponder what she just said, one would say she could practically see the gears turning in his head, to which Kiibo would probably respond with ‘my gears are well hidden, so it’s technically impossible for her to see the gears in my head’, Kaede would have laughed at the thought, however she had been caught off guard when Kiibo had suddenly wrapped his arms around her, ‘Kiibo?!’ she said in surprise, ‘what?’ he saw the blonde’s surprised expression and let her go, ‘I-I’m sorry, you just said hugging was a good way to comfort someone and I thought’ he stammered, Kaede watched as the flustered robot hid part of his face with his collar.

She wrapped her arms around him causing him to yelp in surprise, ‘it’s okay, you were only trying to help’ Kaede said softly, the turquoise eyed robot hesitated before hugging her back.  
The two stayed like that for a while, Kaede’s head was buried in Kiibo’s shoulder, she had needed this more than she thought as little parts of her nightmares came back to her, she held onto the robot for support, Kiibo didn’t say a word other than ‘it’s okay’, ‘it’s not real’ and the occasional gentle shushing those were the only words of comfort he could give, and even then he wasn’t sure how effective they were, he made a mental note to try and research ways to comfort others, or download them at some point.

Kaede was almost asleep when Kiibo spoke again, ‘do you want to talk about it?’ he asked, the pianist nodded in response.

Kaede proceeded to describe the nightmares she had experienced.

-

One of them involved everyone turning against her, causing her to become desperate and devise a plan to kill the mastermind, only to kill Rantaro Amami instead, resulting in a class trial and her own execution, a collar had clamped around her neck and forcefully pulled her up, her mouth opened in a silent scream as she gripped the device around her neck, attempting to stop it from strangling her.

That was when she jolted up from her bed, she breathed heavily and felt her neck to make sure the device wasn’t still there, she felt relieved when she felt nothing on there, ‘it was just a dream’, she reassured herself over and over again, despite the scare she had gotten from the nightmare she had drifted off to sleep again.

She hoped that would have been the end of it, unfortunately it wasn’t.

This time Kaede had woken up in her room and started the day like she normally would, she wasn’t aware she was in a dream so what happened later frightened her beyond belief.

It started when Kokichi started telling the truth all the time, which was very unusual for the mischievous boy, then Iruma was trying to cover herself up, all while complaining about how much skin her clothes showed, she even stopped swearing all together!  
Finally Rantaro, who she had been relieved to see was alive and well, was panicking constantly, no matter what anyone said nothing could get him to relax.  
She had felt their foreheads, and sure enough all three of them were burning up, that was when Monokuma decided to appear and inform them about the despair disease, after explaining it (Kokichi had the honesty disease, Iruma had the modesty disease, and Rantaro had the anxious disease) he then told them there had been a mutation in the disease which made it really fatal, as well as giving it another symptom he refused to specify, ‘I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise, puhuhu’ the sadistic bear said.

Of course this was the motive, Monokuma would only give the infected people the cure if someone got murdered.

However nobody did, instead more and more people got infected, eventually they started dying, if that wasn’t bad enough Kaede found two of her deceased friends Ouma and Amami trying to eat one of the few living people that remained, Shuichi Saihara, their gargled growls sent shivers down her spine, before she could stop them the damage had already been done, with one final scream he died and the hands of the reanimated corpses of his friends, Kaede brought a hand up to her mouth trying not to throw up at the sight, she immediately ran away as quickly as she could, ‘Kiibo, where’s Kiibo?’ she thought frantically, he was the only one other than herself that hadn’t been infected with the disease, whether he was immune to it or not she did not know, but she needed to find him as quickly as possible.

 

She found him, but he wasn’t in one piece, his arms and legs were scattered about on the floor, his torso had been smashed beyond repair, Kaede picked up his head, his eyes stared back at her lifelessly, the expression of horror permanently etched on his face giving her a idea of what his last moments were like.

Kaede froze when she heard a gargled growl in the distance, she ran away from the source of the sound, holding Kiibo’s head close to her as she fled from the monsters her friends had become.

 

She had barricaded the door to her room, looking back she wished she hadn’t trapped herself in a confined space, now that what used to be her friends were banging on the barricaded door, all she could do was hold Kiibo’s severed head close to comfort herself, and wait for death to come.

Thankfully she woke up at that moment, her eyes scanned the dark room for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing.  
She went back to sleep again, only to be greeted by yet another nightmare, unlike the last two she couldn’t remember the third one very well, literally the only thing she remembered was everyone dying, nothing else.

-

‘So that’s when I decided to go out, I was just going to take a short walk when I spotted the door to my development lab, I thought I’d feel better if I played the piano for a while, I didn’t realise how long I had been playing until you showed up’ Kaede finished her explanation.  
After listening to her talk about the nightmares she had experienced, Kiibo felt he had a better understanding of why she had been so shaken.  
There had been times where he was a bit envious of human’s ability to have dreams, during those times he had forgotten about the bad ones they have, what’s worse is how real they seem, Kaede specifically said she wasn’t aware she was dreaming at one point, she actually thought everyone had died.

Kiibo looked at her, trying to think of something to say.

‘A killing’s not going to happen’ he blurted out, the pianist looked up at him, ‘we’ll find a way to escape this place eventually, as long as we work together, everything will work out just fine!’ he continued, remembering what she said the first time they attempted to escape from the sewer, ‘now where did you get that from?’ Kaede said with a smile on her face, ‘from you remember, when we tried to escape’ he said plainly, the pianist let out a small laugh ‘I know Kiibo, I remember’.

Kaede looked at the window to see that it was dawn, ‘Have we really been here that long?’ Kaede and Kiibo let go of each other, ‘we better get back to our rooms, you must be tired’ Kiibo said, Kaede nodded, now that he mentioned it staying up for a few more hours was starting to take its toll.

Apart from the occasional yawn from Kaede neither of the two spoke as the walked to their rooms.

Kiibo was just about to part ways with Kaede when he felt her arms wrap around him, ‘thank you Kiibo’ the robot smiled and hugged her back, ‘you’re welcome, Kaede’, after a few seconds the two parted ways with smiles on their faces.

-

All the ultimates had gathered in the cafeteria as usual, Kiibo smiled at Kaede glad to see she was acting like her usual self again, ‘hmm’ an all too familiar voice from beside him hummed, the robot looked to his left and sure enough he saw a boy with messy purple hair smirking at him, ‘what do you want Ouma’ Kiibo said already irritated despite the fact Ouma hadn’t said a word, the SHSL supreme leader’s smirk widened ‘heard you and Kaede snuck out last night...’ Kiibo looked at him questioningly, ‘how did you even know we were out?’, the purple haired boy folded his arms behind his head ‘I couldn’t sleep either, so I thought I’d sneak out, I didn’t expect you to have the same idea though, so I thought “meh I’ll just follow him and see where he goes” and that’s exactly what I did, I followed you until you reached the SHSL pianist development lab, then I left once Kaede stopped singing’ he said casually, ‘I wasn’t sneaking out, I was just going to take a walk’ Kiibo said, ‘you still went out after hours without permission, so technically it’s still sneaking Kiiboy’ Kokichi grinned triumphantly as Kiibo struggled to come up with a response.

Kaede glanced at the two, Kiibo glared at Ouma as he kept sniggering, the robot sighed in frustration before looking at her, Kaede gave Kiibo a smile which he returned.  
They’ll escape, somehow, as long as they don’t lose hope.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it, I always get nervous when publishing a fic.
> 
> Also Happy (sorta late) Birthday to Kiibo!


End file.
